PUBLICATIONS

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Recent Publications:

Research Reports

Cacapon Monitoring Summary Statistics 1996 - 2012 (PDF, 500 kb)

Fecal Coliform Bacteria Monitoring for Sleepy Creek Watershed Association, Phase II Final report (PDF, 1MB)  Supplemental monitoring for the Sleepy Creek 319 Watershed Based Plan.

Fecal Coliform Bacteria Monitoring for the Warm Springs Watershed Association Final Report with Data.  June 2014.  (250 kb, PDF)   The results of this study support the listing of this stream as impaired for fecal coliform bacteria. The drivers for elevated fecal coliform bacteria counts at the sampled sites remain unclear.

Fecal Coliform Bacteria Monitoring for the Warm Springs Watershed Association Supplemental Monitoring Report.  December 2014

Fecal Coliform Bacteria Monitoring for the Sleepy Creek Watershed Incremental 319 Project Final Report.  2011.   ( 300kb, PDF)  The Sleepy Creek 319 Watershed Based Plan Development Team asked Cacapon Institute (CI) to conduct ‘plan implementation monitoring’ for fecal coliform bacteria. The purpose of monitoring was to gather additional data leading to a better understanding of the problem and more informed decisions on areas that require particular attention for remediation.

Potomac Headwaters Stream Flow Restoration Project. 2007 VA/WV Water Research Symposium paper is here.

The Effects of Pollution Reduction on a Wild Trout Stream.  2007 VA/WV Water Research Symposium paper is here.

Collins, Alan, Neil Gillies, and Danny Welsch.  Wetland Treatment of Nitrates: Design and Cost Efficiency.  Presented at: Land and Sea Grant National Water Conference, Portland, OR, May 23, 2012.  (PDF, 5 MB)

Collins, Alan and Neil Gillies.  Solving Agricultural Nitrate Pollution by Conversion of Non-Point into Point Sources.  Presentation at:  2010 USDA-CSREES National Water Conference, Hilton Head, SC, February 24, 2010 (PDF, 4 MB)

“Controlling Pollution with Opportunities, not Regulations”,  Peter Maille and Alan Collins, Poster presented at the USDA-CSREES National Water Conference, Sparks, NV, February 3-7, 2008. (PPT, 820 kb)

“Farmers as Producers of Clean Water: Getting Incentive Payments Right”, Alan Collins and Peter Maille, presented at the USDA-CSREES National Water Conference, Sparks, NV, February 5, 2008. (PPT, 881 kb)

“Farmers as Producers of Clean Water:  Providing Economic Incentives for Reducing Agricultural Non-Point Source Pollution”, Alan R. Collins and Peter Maille, paper presented at USDA-CSREES National Water Conference, Savannah, GA, January 30, 2007.  (PPT, 328 kb)

Final report to Canaan Valley Institute on Results of Land Use Analysis for Water Quality Study Sites in the Lost, North and Cacapon River Watersheds.  2003

Learning From Life on the Bottom: Streambed creatures provide clues to the Cacapon's health.  An addendum to Portrait of a River: The Ecological Baseline of the Cacapon River.  Cacapon Volume 8 No. 2 (163 KB, PDF)

 Portrait of a River: The Ecological Baseline of the Cacapon River (2.5 mb, PDF)

Petite Beef by Headwater Farms: Marketing Beef Using a Land Stewardship and Clean Water Label.  Neil Gillies.  Presented at the Missouri Forage and Grassland Council 2001 Annual Conference on November 6, 2001  (47 KB, PDF)

Final Report to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Water Quality Studies in the Cacapon River’s Lost and North River Watersheds in West Virginia. June 18, 2002 (130 KB, PDF)

A Comparison of Professional and Volunteer Methods for Assessing Stream Health, Including Discussion of an Improved Volunteer Method.  Click here for a summary version in html format.

Water Quality Studies in a Watershed Dominated by Integrated Poultry Agriculture.  W. Neil Gillies.  PROCEEDINGS, NONPOINT SOURCE "The Hidden Challenge," West Virginia NPS Conference October 1, 2, 3, 1998 (69 KB, PDF)

Cacapon River Monitoring Study 1999 State of the River Summary Tables and Graphs (See March 2000 newsletter for State of the River Report).

Land Use and Water Quality at three sites in the Lost River Watershed-Short Summary (13 KB, PDF file)

Summary Report on Water Quality Studies in the Lost River, North River and South Branch of the Potomac River Watersheds of West Virginia-June 1999. (139KB, PDF)   Introduction:  Poultry production in the Potomac Headwaters region of WV has more than doubled since the early 1990s.  The waste byproducts of this industry are typically land applied and concerns over potential water quality impacts are widespread.  The purpose of this interim report is to provide an overview of data from Cacapon Institute's multiyear study of land use influences on nutrient and bacteria concentrations in the Lost, North and South Branch of the Potomac river watersheds, three West Virginia basins with varying densities of integrated poultry agriculture.

Report on Results of Well Water Testing in the Cacapon Watershed (8 KB, PDF file)

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Forestry Publications

Carla Hardy West Virginia Project CommuniTree (CTree) promotes tree planting and education on public land through volunteerism in the Potomac Headwaters of West Virginia (Berkeley, Grant, Hampshire, Hardy, Jefferson, Mineral, Morgan, & Pendleton counties). The program also focuses on enhancing and promoting awareness of watershed and riparian area needs such as storm water management, water quality issues, buffer zone planting, and soil erosion. The project is entirely volunteer based and engages stakeholders in the process of making priority decisions within their respective communities.  CTree is a program of the WV Conservation Agency and the WV Potomac Tributary Team that is engaged in on-the-ground actions throughout the Potomac Highlands.

Urban Tree Canopy Schoolyard-Watershed Report: RESA 8 Public Schools (PDF, 3MB) At the request of the WV Chesapeake Bay Tributary Team, Cacapon Institute (CI) conducted an assessment of landcover at RESA 8 public schools. The WV Trib Team is dedicated to improving water quality; landcover is a key indicator of watershed health and the likely delivery of non-point source stormwater pollution runoff. This is an introductory assessment and is not intended to be a definitive or conclusive document. It is based on color and infrared aerial imagery from 2007 and 2009. This report indicates where the building footprints are, where impervious transportation infrastructure exists, and where the grounds have forest patches and tree canopy cover.

Jefferson County Parks & Recreation UTC Analysis (PDF, 8MB) and Jefferson County Parks and Rec 2' x 3' UTC Poster  (PDF, 2MB).  Cacapon Institute (CI), in partnership with the USDA Forest Service, WV Division of Forestry, WV Department of Environmental Protection, and Jefferson County Parks & Recreation presents an Urban Tree Canopy (UTC) analysis for all ten of JCPRC’s parks.  The explanatory poster won the Map Gallery Competition at the 9^th annual Eastern Panhandle Users Group Meeting in August 2015

Greenway Cemetery, Town of Bath, West Virginia, Tree Inventory & Forest Management Recommendations.  June 2015  (PDF, 1 MB)  Greenway Cemetery is an important environmental asset to the Town of Bath. The volunteer survey and USDA Forest Service iTree Street found that the trees in the portions of the cemetery where people are or will be buried provide $21,673 in annual benefits including $8,798 in energy savings, $208 in CO2 sequestration, $1,568 in air pollution reduction, $2,310 in stormwater runoff mitigation, and $8,788 in aesthetic and other value. The forested area south of the maintenance shed/Third Addition provides even more benefits and is the largest contiguous forest patch within the Town’s boundary.

Report on Street Trees, Canopy and Landcover for the Town of Bath  (2 MB, PDF)  A report for the Town of Bath iTree Street, Vue, and Canopy assessments. ITree was developed by the USDA Forest Service Northern Research Station to assist municipalities with evaluating the tree canopy and condition of trees in their communities.  iTree Street evaluates the “dollar value” of the ecological and economic benefits of trees. The report is based on information collected by Bath Tree Board volunteers who collected information on individual street trees in the public space during the summer of 2014. Information collected included species, health, size, and conflicts with utilities.  iTree Canopy is a statistical analysis of the landcover for the Town of Bath. Canopy relies on Google Earth imagery and assigns random sample points. The random samples were assessed by Cacapon Institute staff to determine the landcover at the point where the random sample fell. Landcover was assessed and assigned one of seven landcover types – tree canopy, green/other, bare soil, water, building, road/railroad, or impervious/other.  iTree Vue uses National Agriculture Inventory Program aerial imagery to assess landcover. Landcover can be assessed in more than one hundred types including, for example, hardwood or conifer forest, light and heavy urban. Vue relies on 30 meter pixels of data and should not be used to evaluate areas less than one square mile.  Since Bath is less than 0.5 square miles the larger Warm Spring Run watershed was assessed.

Martinsburg iTree Streets Inventory Report.  The City of Martinsburg worked with the Martinsburg Shade Tree Commission to conduct an i-Tree Streets ("i-Tree") inventory of trees in the public right of way. Martinsburg appreciates the technical support provided by Cacapon Institute and the WV Division of Forestry in conducting the survey and drafting this report. i-Tree Streets is a USDA Forest Service assessment tool used to gauge the "ecosystem services and structure of a city’s street tree population." Based on a random sample of street segments and user defined input i-Tree estimates a value on trees’ annual environmental and aesthetic benefits.  (Download PDF, 2.8 MB)

A Report on Berkeley County’s Existing and Possible Tree Canopy.  The goal of the project was to apply the USDA Forest Service’s Tree Canopy Assessment protocols to Berkeley County. The analysis was centered on eastern Berkeley County/Opequon Creek watershed and carried out using year 2011 data. The study area boundary was determined based on the availability of LiDAR, a key input dataset. This project was made possible by the Cacapon Institute with funding from the USDA Forest Service.  The Spatial Analysis Laboratory (SAL) at the University of Vermont’s Rubenstein School of the Environment and Natural Resources carried out the assessment in collaboration with Berkeley County, SavATree, WV Division of Forestry, and the USDA Forest Service’s Northern Research Station. (Download PDF, 5.3 MB)

A Report on Jefferson County’s Existing and Possible Tree Canopy (PDF, 3.3 MB)

Jefferson County Urban Tree Canopy Plan & Goal   (PDF, 600 kb)

Chesapeake Forest Restoration Strategy was edited by Sally Claggett and Julie Mawhort, USDA Forest Service Chesapeake Bay Office.  CI collaborated on the publication as a member of the Bay Forestry Work Group.  We are acknowledged on page 6 for our work with the Urban & Community Forestry Team.  Note the map on page 23.  CI led the WV effort for tree canopy assessments on Berkeley and Jefferson Counties – two of the eleven counties Bay-wide who have completed the work.  (Download PDF, 22.6MB)”

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Watershed Education Reports

Community Environmental Management (CEM) Reports

Read archival Cacapon newsletter natural history articles

Cacapon Institute Financial Reports

Read our recent newsletters!

December 2008 (16 pages, available as PDF download only - 2.34 MB)

This newsletter focused on CI's education programs, with features on Stream Scholars Summer Camp, PHLOW, Environmental Forums, with an overview of the whole program.  Also included were features on the deer fence project and Famers as Producers of Clean Water.

October 2005 (8 pages, available as PDF download only - 1.10 MB)

This newsletter focused on the Revisit the Baseline project. 

June 2005 in html on the web (pdf available on request)

March 2004 in html on the web (pdf available on request)

September 2002 in html on the web.

December 2001 in html on the web or pdf for download

December 2000 - Download (108KB, PDF)

March 2000 - Download (130KB, PDF)

August 1999 - Download (422 KB, PDF file)

Newsletter Index  (16KB, PDF file) If you're interested in any articles in the index, just email us and we'll try to send you a hard copy of the article.

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Science and Society

Cacapon Institute initiated a series of papers with the goal of "seeking a more definitive understanding of water quality issues in the Potomac watershed."

1.  The first paper in the series is "Farmer Participation in Riparian Buffer Zone Programs."  Well vegetated riparian zones, the strip of land bordering rivers, can trap a large proportion of bacteria, nutrients ands sediment that might otherwise flow into rivers from agricultural lands.   Outreach Coordinator Peter Maille interviewed eight farmers and five extension/conservation professionals to determine the strengths and weaknesses of government programs that support riparian zone conservation on farms in the Potomac Headwaters.  For results, some discussion and a "modest" proposal, Click Here (33 KB, PDF file). 

2.  "A Comparison of Professional and Volunteer Methods for Assessing Stream Health, Including Discussion of an Improved Volunteer Method".  In recent years, the science of using animals to assess stream health has gone public. The Izaak Walton League's Save Our Streams (SOS) program and other volunteer methods are similar in general design to the methods used by professional biologists, but tailored to the capabilities of non-professionals. Cacapon Institute compared results from WV’s volunteer SOS monitoring and the more scientifically rigorous stream assessment methods used by WV’s Division of Environmental Protection. We found that SOS Stream Scores as currently calculated often overestimate the health of a stream in comparison to professional assessments. We propose a modified volunteer method that generates results that compare favorably to professional assessments, and utilizes the same collection technique and the same level of identification skill currently required of SOS volunteers.  To learn more, Click Here (100 KB, PDF file).

3.  Understanding Science.  Pick up the morning newspaper these days and you are likely to come across phrases like “the research does not prove a cause-and-effect relationship...just an association.”  Such language might sound like it was lifted directly from a scientific journal. Increasingly, however, technical jargon is becoming routine. But, while the topics touch us all, we do not always understand ideas like "degree of scientific certainty," or the difference between "cause-and-effect relationship" and "association." Luckily, one need not be a scientist. Click here for a few tips you can use to make sense of science-based discussions and for a characteristic set of objections often used to obscure a debate on "just the facts."

4.  The Future of Our Rivers: Interviews with selected decision-makers and stakeholders.   How will the coming years change our rivers?  This question is at the intersection of economic development and environmental conservation.  In “The Environmental Costs of Economic Growth” Professor Barry Commoner says, “This is a complex issue …, it therefore suffers somewhat from a high ratio of concern to fact.  In addition, the issue is one which happens not to coincide with the domain of an established academic discipline.”  The question is also open to a dynamic stakeholder debate with unforeseen issues surely coming to bear.   

How to shed light on such a fluid question?  Our answer is “The Future of Our Rivers.”  This interview series presents the opinions of people on questions like “How will our rivers fare over the next 20 years?” “What ought to be done to protect our rivers?” and “Are you optimistic?”  We think that these opinions represent the personal reality of the interviewees, and that conservation depends on a real appreciation of different perspectives.

To read the interviews we have collected thus far, or to answer the same set of questions and add your viewpoints to this discussion, click here.  

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Readings in Sustainable Agriculture

In November 2001, Cacapon Institute gave a presentation on Marketing Beef Using a Land Stewardship and Clean Water Label  at the Missouri Forage and Grassland Council 2001 Annual Conference.

We're pleased to offer the following essays on issues concerning sustainable agriculture.  These provide background information on the need for programs such as Petite Beef by Headwater Farms and on the societal choices that must be made if the small farm producing high quality food is to survive.  Cacapon Institute is involved in these issues because they advance our goal to help move this region's agriculture into a model that will provide farmers a better livelihood, conserve the rural aspect of our community and protect our streams.  

We find the following essays by Dr. John Ikerd, Professor Emeritus of Agricultural Economics, University of Missouri, Columbia to be particularly well-reasoned and  well-written.

SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE AS A RURAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY

Sustainable rural development must conserve non-renewable resources, protect the physical and social environment, provide an acceptable level of economic returns, and enhance the quality of life of those who work and live in rural communities.  Sustainable agriculture may help reverse past rural population trends by supporting more, rather than fewer, people in rural communities.

More papers by Dr. Ikerd